Resale Prices For Super Bowl XLIX Tickets Rise To Record Levels

Jesse Lawrence
, ContributorI cover the business and emotion of the ticket marketOpinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Update 1/30: As of 6pm ET on Friday evening, just 100 tickets are listed on the secondary market with an average price of $11,565.14 and a get-in price of $7,000.

Over the last 49 years, the Super Bowl has become a literal and figurative peak for American commercialism to aspire to. While it was decidedly not larger than life in the early years, it has become the biggest, most extravagant event in America. Being the ‘Super Bowl’ of something means you’re the biggest and best that you can be in your chosen field of work or life. Over the last 25 years, that superlative designation has been thrown about for so many events, in fact, that it has lost most of it’s meaning.

This year, however, it has made a meta-comeback in the ticket world. When this year's Super Bowl is played and done, regardless of who wins, it will likely be the Super Bowl of all Super Bowls -- the most expensive NFL championship ever based on ticket resale prices.

The current average list price for Super Bowl XLIX tickets at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., is $6,103.07, making it the most expensive Super Bowl that TiqIQ has ever tracked. That average is 102% more expensive than it was at the same point one year ago. Last year on the day of the game, the secondary market average was $2,500 and you could likely get in the stadium for closer to $1,000. This year, the cheapest ticket will likely be triple that, and the average will almost certainly close above $5,000, which would make it the most expensive Super Bowl—or any other event-- since we started tracking the market back in 2010.

Below is a chart, by day, of the last six Super Bowls and the average price by day for each. As you can see, 2015 had done nothing but move up until Monday, which could be the start of a price decline heading into the game. With it’s almost vertical climb in the last two days, this year’s game is still literally off the chart - or at least redefining the upper limits of the chart.

For fans looking to get a ticket, it’s important to be aware that upper level tickets are actually MORE expensive than lower level tickets. As counterintuitive as that sounds, it’s an economic inversion caused in large part by over-selling ‘speculative’ upper level tickets last week. Speculative selling means that brokers sold a ticket that they did not have in their possession, and were making a bet on the market based on historical patterns much like the ones illustrated above.

Unfortunately for those professional ticket sellers (and buyers), there is now a shortage of tickets in the upper levels relative to years past. That means that a fan that purchased a ‘Section/Row TBD’ Upper Level seat the Sunday of the conference championships paid as low as $1,900. The best deal on the market as of 3pm one week later is $4,200.

As for what could happen going forward, The University of Phoenix Stadium’s history may be the best guide. In 2010, the National Championship between Auburn and Oregon also broke the $5,000 average price mark, and to this day remains the only other event above $5,000 that we’ve ever seen. The cheapest ticket on game day that year was $2,750. The peak average price for that game came five days out at an average price of $5,906. This year’s peak (so far) is about 10% higher than that. That year, the cheapest ticket dropped 36% from it’s peak five days before the game. If that were to happen this year, the cheapest ticket available on game day would be around $2,800. Given that, $3,000 is a good mark to shoot if you just want to ‘get in’.